Legendary Warriors
The earliest story of Ardtalla stems from the the origins of Gaelic Scotland, featuring the semi-legendary warrior Fionn MacCumhail, (Finn McCool). Earl’s ‘Tales of Islay’ records that the great warrior’s headquarters were in Skye, but he was fond of coming to Islay to relax:
Fionn was said to be the son of an Irish father and a Norse mother. His father’s name was Cumhal and his mother’s Morna. Not only was he a hero in Ireland but his adventures were told in Scotland, especially in the west, and many place names are called after him. If the great Fionn MacCumhail was so fond of Islay and visited it so often, surely there must be some indication somewhere that this was so. At Ardtalla there is Dun Fhinn up in the hills opposite Trudernish. Even from a distance it looks quite imposing. In the same area there is what was once an ideal township, Creag Fhinn, with many interesting features. It is a fascinating place and can be reached after a short climb, though it is not so very easy to find as the old tracks leading to it have disappeared. If only it could come alive again!
Fionn grew up big and strong, good at running, swimming and leaping: in fact he was a real giant, and being the type of person he was, naturally legends grew up round about him. He had a son called Ossian. Fionn was said to have much wisdom, which he got from eating the Salmon of Knowledge, which was given to him by an old man who was fishing nearby. He was called Fionn because he was so fair, and he became the leader of the Fienne, a band of warriors renowned for their bravery and war-like deeds.
At one time the people in Islay were being harassed by the Lochlanners and appealed to Fionn to come to their aid. This Fionn did, and he and his men soon cleared Islay of the invaders. A bloody battle took place on the Big Strand called Lathan a Tunnachan, the Battle of the Staves. The warriors fought with staves or short sharp sticks which they threw at their enemy with great force. They carried supplies of these staves under their arm or in a sort of quiver, as was used to carry arrows. Fionn is said to have died in AD283, which places the battle long before the Norse occupation.
A Missionary Position
Today, Ardtalla’s main historical claim to fame is the Kildalton Cross, an important and evocative relic of the early Celtic church. In “Islay – Biography of an island”, Margaret Storrie explains that Gaelic-speaking ‘Scots’ of Ireland built coracles towards the end of the fifth century AD, to cross what is now known as the North Channel, establishing the Dalriada kingdom in Argyll (Earra-ghaidheal) on the western seaboard. At first, she says, Columban missionaries from Ireland probably lived as hermit monks in cells or as priests in tiny buildings, which developed into monastic settlements both secular and religious. Its not difficult to imagine a monastic settlement at Kildalton, on a sheltered ridge overlooking fertile ground for farming and accessible for sea travel via the sheltered bays and inlets of Ardilistry, Port Mor, Glas Uig and Aros. Havens such as this formed part of a pattern of settlements up and down the Hebrides and western mainland of Scotland, allowing the primitive sailing craft of the day to rest and take on provisions on their voyages between the mother monasteries in Ireland and the important satellite communities in such places as Iona and Applecross.
Described in David Caldwell’s Historical Guide to Islay, Jura and Colonsay: the Kildalton Cross is the only complete, unbroken, early Christian wheel cross to survive in Scotland and is a superb piece of art, carved from a local piece of epidiorite in the late 8th century. It stands to a height of 2.65m above its plinth and is carved all over on both sides with spirals, bosses, interlace and animals. On its east face there are groups of figures representing scenes from the Bible. The side arms have Cain murdering Abel and Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, while the top of the shaft has the Virgin and Child flanked by Angels. The top arm has two Angels at the very top, and David killing the lion, a sheep in the background. Below that is a design with two birds… in the graveyard are several grave slabs of interest, including a 16th-century one with two small effigies of armoured men in niches, with a floriated cross and a galley below.
The theme of this wheel-cross, writes Norman Newton in “Islay”, is sacrifice, and it is easy to imagine a priest using it as a kind of visual aid in explaining the message of the Bible to parishioners. Newton writes of an interesting discovery: when the foundations of the Kildalton cross were being repaired and reconstructed in 1882, some human remains were found which it was thought at the time showed evidence that the victim had been ‘spreadeagled’ – as the historian W.D. Lamont delicately put it, ‘a singularly unpleasant sport to which the Vikings were addicted’. The victim was pinned to the ground, face down, and his heart and lungs removed, from the back, and held aloft. As this gruesome death was reserved for important or valorous victims considered worthy of honour, it has been suggested that the remains under the Kildalton cross may have been of the abbot of the monastery. Vikings started looting Hebridean monasteries from AD801 onwards; within twenty years the ruthlessness of their attacks forced the church authorities to retreat to Ireland with their treasures, abandoning their parishioners to their fate. The Viking raids were followed by centuries of Norse occupation. Sacrifice indeed.
Lords of the Isles
The Viking overlordship was followed by the Macdonald lordship of the Isles. While most sites associated with the Lordship on Islay are in other parts of the island it is known that the final battle which brought ruin to the Macdonalds took place on Ardtalla. A description is given in “A Historical Sketch of Islay” published in 1850 by William Macdonald:
This battle (the battle of Traigh Gruinard) brought the King’s rage against the Macdonalds to a climax, and he immediately gave the charter of all Islay to the Earl of Argyle and the Campbells. This act of James VI, arose obviously out of his belief in the supposed Divine Right of Kings, viz, to do as he pleased, without being gainsayed by Parliament, and without considering whether or not his conduct in this respect was conducive to the common welfare; the only test of a Divine Right. But he little thought that the Islay men and their Chief entertained quite a different opinion; and consequently the kingly grant of Islay to the Campbells gave rise to a number of bloody conflicts between the new proprietors of the Island and the Macdonalds in the years 1614 and 1615, which ended in the ruin of the latter in the following year at the Battle of Beinn Bhiogair in Islay. On that fatal field the Macdonalds were nearly exterminated by the Macleans, Macleods, Camerons, Macneills and Campbells, in all about 1800 men, whereas the opposing party were only 1350. Nearly 500 of the Macdonalds were slain on the field of battle and 750 were immolated in Gleann Dubh Phroaig – Close to Beinn Bhogair. Sir James fled to Spain, but returned in 2 years and received a pension of £1000 a year from the King out of the English Exchequer, and died of poison at Glasgow in 1620. So ended the supremacy of the Macdonalds in Islay.
Caldwell writes that “Proaig”, near where this definitive battle took place – was at the end of an old drove road from Storakaig, off the Ballygrant-Cluanach road. It belonged to the MacArthurs, hereditary pipers to the Lords of the Isles. There is a fine MacArthur grave slab of 1696 in Kildalton Church.
The ruined church at Kildalton is something of an enigma. Caldwell writes that: “it was one of the mediaeval parish churches of Islay. The name has caused problems for scholars intent on identifying the saint to whom the church was dedicated. It does not appear to commemorate a ‘Dalton’, but possibly a fosterling. If so, a possible candidate is Baithene, a cousin and disciple of St. Columba, who succeeded him to the abbacy of Iona. It has been pointed out that Columba compared Baithene to John the Evangelist and there is evidence that Kildalton was dedicated to St John in the Mediaeval period.
The church probably dates to the 13th century and is built of coursed rubble work with sandstone dressings (many replaced in recent restoration work) which have had to be imported to Islay. It is some 18m by 7m, with two entrance doorways, not quite opposite each other, in the nave. Outside the north one is a prehistoric saddle quern, normally with offerings of money in it. The east wall of the chancel is lit by two lancet windows, with others in the side walls. A window high in the west gable may have lit a separate chamber, perhaps accommodation for the priest. There are the remains of a piscina (a basin for ritual washing) in the south-east corner of the chancel”.
Caldwell suggests that from the evidence of the Kildalton Cross, and other crosses found at the site, the church must occupy an early monastic site, however, there are no signs of an early vallum or other identifiable monastic features. The present churchyard wall dates to the 1770s and encloses a relatively small area, but a mediaeval cross about 50m to the north-east of the church might mark the original extent of an early church enclosure”.
Not to be missed in the kirkyard are some vividly carved mediaeval grave slabs: “one might particularly note”, writes Caldwell, “the armoured effigy of a 16th-century MacIan, his feet resting on his galley, and another, now sadly damaged, with a vigorous hunting scene, including dogs attacking a stag and a huntsman with his horn. A slab dated 1696 also has a hunting theme, a carving of a highland long gun of that period, along with a powder horn and a hound”, that commemorates Charles MacArthur of Proaig.
Smugglers
Beyond Proaig is the ‘Whisky Cave’, near the lighthouse at MacArthur’s Head. A portrait of Baldy Mhurachaidh, the ‘last of the Islay smugglers’ is recorded in Blair’s ‘Reminiscences of Islay’ published in the 1890s: Illicit distillation was not altogether unknown, even in my day, although the gaugers (excisemen) were nearly as plentiful as the Campbells. I have often seen the liquor and knew a cave near Proaig where malting was carried on, but I never came across a ‘sma still’ (poit dhubh). When not in seclusion for his sins, Baldy always brewed a wee drop at New Year time just to keep up the traditions of the country. Under a rough exterior Baldy had an independent spirit – he always carried a little oatmeal with him, and at his houses of call his only want was a porridge pot in which to prepare his frugal feed.
‘Tales of Islay’ takes up the story:
Alas, poor Baldy was betrayed into the hands of the hated gaugers (excisemen) by a friend who, although he had been hospitably treated by Baldy, had taken offence at him for some reason or other. Baldy escaped before the gaugers got him, but had to leave all his gear behind. It may still be there today – if only one could locate the cave.
Tales of Islay has another such story from the same vicinity:
Some fishermen took a young boy with them who was the only son of a widow, and her chief mainstay. What should happen but that they should find a small cask of brandy. They had no intention of declaring their find to the hated gaugers and, fearing that the boy might tell, they decided to put him to death. This happened on the bend of the road past Maol Bhuidhe, and there, sure enough, were three russet-red marks on the road, quite plain to be seen. Today the road has been tarred, but there is still an indication that the blood of a murdered person cannot be obliterated. The boy’s mother put a curse on the murderers – losgadh air tir, agus bathadh air muir (burning on land and drowning at sea), and this did happen to members of the family of the perpetrators of this awful deed.
Cnoc Rhaonastil, the burial place of Talbot Clifton, has an older claim to fame:
About 1670 a remarkable vision was said to be seen on this hill. Above the house of Cnoc Rhaonastil there was seen a cripple going on stilts and a young man, also lame, being led by an old man. The three were skipping and loping along on the top of the hill shouting ‘Heigh Gilbert, ho Gilbert. Gilbert mur so! Gilbert mur so!’
French Warships
A piece of local history is recorded by William Macdonald:
In the beginning of the year 1760 the people of Islay were thrown into a state of great excitement by the arrival of the French squadron, commanded by Commodore Thurot, in Aros Bay, near the south entry to the Sound of Islay. This squadron consisted originally of five frigates, (frogates?) and were part of a large naval armament fitted up with the design of invading the British shores. It is well known that Prince Charles Stuart was to have accompanied it on an arrangement favourable to France, in the event of his recovering the throne of his ancestors. Detachments of the English fleet however blocked up the French ships in their harbours for months; but in spite of all obstacles Thurot broke through at Dunkirk, and sailed for Norway, a point from which he was afterwards to move according to instructions. He had with him upwards of 1200 land forces. Though pursued by Commodore Boyes, Thurot got safe to Gottenburg, and after staying there a short time he proceeded to Bergen, on which voyage he lost company of one of his vessels in a storm. Towards the end of January 1760, he set sail for Ireland. For weeks they beat about in the North Sea, suffering much from storms, want of provisions and sickness. Another vessel now parted company and was never more heard of. With the remainder of his squadron Thurot appeared off Islay on February 16, being resolved to make an attempt to obtain some provisions. Mr Archibald Macdonald and Mr Godfrey Macneil, two gentlemen of the Island, went out to them in a small boat, thinking they were British vessels in distress. They soon found them to be foreign ships; and being requested by Thurot to take them into a safe harbour they conducted them to Aros Bay. The Islay gentlemen were kindly treated in the commander’s own cabin. Then a council was held at which it was determined to make a landing on the Island in order to obtain provisions. Accordingly 200 men went ashore, accompanied by Messrs. Macdonald and Macneil, who induced the country people to bring cattle, poultry and meal, to be disposed of to the strangers. So extreme was the condition of these poor men, that they dug up all the potatoes and cabbages they could get; and ate them raw, with great avidity. From Mr Campbell of Ardmore they ontained 48 bullocks, 17 bags of oatmeal, and other articles. The French officers generally seemed unwilling to make any payment, but Thurot obliged them all to render full compensation. On the third day after their arrival at Islay they set sail for Ireland, and took Carrickfergus. After keeping possession of that Fort for three days and committing many depradations he sailed for France; but was chased by Captain Elliot of the Eolus, with the Pallas and Brilliant in his company, who brought him to an engagement. After a short but fierce and bloody action, Thurot, together with 200 of his men were killed, and the three French vessels were taken; and thus ended the movement which produced so great an excitement in Britain.
The Clearances
An account of what came to be known as ‘the Clearances’ in the ensuing years is contained in a book ‘John Ramsay of Kildalton’ written by his granddaughter Freda:
After the Rebellion of 1745, a steady stream of tacksmen’s families, often accompanied by their subtenants, emigrated to the New World or joined the British or East India Company’s armed forces. In 1738-39-40, over 400 people left Islay for the New England colonies. Thus the static population of the island continued to be the crofters. At no time in their history had these crofters worked for wages, their time had been their own, and, because of the frequent absences of their superiors, they had come to look on the land as theirs. Though this gave them an independence of spirit, it certainly was not conducive to their acceptance of modern leases for fixed periods and stated rents, with provisions against subletting; nor did they favour regular work for wages in the various light industries which were introduced. They were, moreover, almost entirely Gaelic-speaking and largely uneducated, which made them slow to accept modern concepts of progress and contemporary thought. The result was that they remained on the land in greatly increasing numbers, subdividing it more and more as sons and grandsons grew up.
The 1841 census shows a population in Islay of 13,602 and the peak of just under 15,000 was recorded in 1831. John Ramsay wrote to the Secretary of the Highland Relief Committee in 1846:
Much has been done and many sacrifices made for the support of the people and for the encouragement among them of habits of industry. The resources of the people are now, however, exhausted and there is great reason to fear that the crops grown this year will be quite inadequate for the support of the inhabitants of Islay, and it is therefore a subject for anxious consideration to see how this shortcoming is to be supplied.
In 1860 John Ramsay had purchased the Oa peninsula to the west of Port Ellen from Charles Morrison of Islay. On Killeyan, one 450 acre farm there: There were four tenants, who with their families numbered twenty-nine souls, and they had all intimated to Charles Morrison their intention to leave the island. On the understanding that this farm was to be vacant at the date of his entry, John Ramsay allocated it to a single tenant from another overcrowded farm. When, by Whitsunday 1861, the Killeyan tenants had not removed, Charles Morrison said he would try to provide them with farms on his side of the island. This, however, proved impossible and as the Kildalton Estate was already so crowded, John Ramsay could not do so either. By May, 1862, they had resolved to emigrate and being illiterate and only Gaelic-speaking, a petition was drawn up on their behalf by the Reverend James Dewar, minister of the Oa, which they signed by mark, asking Charles Morrison for assistance to take them to Canada. This he gave and they sailed for Toronto aboard the Damascus on June 28, 1862.
John Ramsay and his wife Eliza had a particular interest in the spread of education and together they travelled through the Western Islands, visiting and founding schools as far north as Lewis. In Islay, educational facilities were perhaps better than elsewhere in the islands. In the early years of the (19th) century, Walter Frederick Campbell and his uncle Walter Campbell of Sunderland had done much to establish efficient schools, a policy continued by John Ramsay and Charles Morrison. To begin with, the buildings were much superior, the Campbells having laid down that new cottages should have walls of stone and lime (not the old dry stone construction) and these must be a certain height to the eaves, “having gabled ends with built-in chimneys in the English manner, the roofs to be slated”. Though few of the roofs complied with this last provision, the new cottages, which included the schools, were a great improvement on the so-called black houses, such Hebrides cottages as John Francis Campbell described vividly in 1860:
…built of a double wall of loose boulders, with a layer of peat three feet thick between the walls, the ends round, and the roof rests on the inner walls, leaving room for a crop of yellow gowans (corn marigolds). A man might walk around the roof on top of the wall. There is but one room with two low doors, one each side of the house. The fire is on the floor; the chimney is a hole above it; and the rafters are hung with pendants and festoons of black peat reek. They are of birch… American drift wood, or broken wreck. They support a covering of turf and straw, and stones and heather ropes, which keep the rain out well enough…”
It will, however, be understood that though picturesque, they were not suitable for the upbringing of large families nor for educational establishments. It is not to be wondered that tuberculosis was so prevalent and it was the knowledge that this and other ills were on the increase that gave rise to the anxiety of thinking men.
Even though several of the schools were supported by a church or society, the onus of finding suitable schoolteachers and paying their salaries long fell upon John. He continued to improve the estate, building over twenty farm houses and steadings, designed on the square plan and constructed for the most part of dressed stone, with water laid on and sanitation.
In the last decades of the century, farming reached its zenith in Islay. The quality of the dairy herds of Ayrshire cows was high and many farms had lofts for several hundred cheeses of the Dunlop type, which fetched high prices on the London market. Sheep and beef cattle were also of a high standard and the farms were well cultivated. Between distilling (until Ardinistle was closed there were five distilleries in the parish) and agriculture, Kildalton was now a thriving district.
Among the buildings on Ardtalla today that were built by John Ramsay is Kintour Schoolhouse, where you can enjoy a comfortable holiday at Ardtalla. Two of the other houses that are available for holiday letting are Ardtalla Farmhouse and Ardilistry Cottage, which also date from this period.
In 1870 John Ramsay travelled to Canada to see for himself how some of the emigrants from his lands in Islay were faring. The following passage describes one such meeting:
Archibald Campbell, cartwright, from Lurabus, came out about sixteen years since with his brother William, and has been working for some years past in Beaverton at his trade as a waggon-maker, after having worked at farming for some time after his arrival. He is now getting on well at his trade, and has acquired a good property in the town, having a fine orchard, which affords an ample supply of fruits for family use. His wife died this year (Ann Mathieson). She was a daughter of J. Matheson, who perished in a snowstorm at Proaig. He has six children, all at home, the eldest being employed in a store in Beaverton; there are two boys and four girls. He prefers Canada very much to Islay, as work is plenty and food cheap; the work being highly paid now, though not so good when he came here.
John Ramsay died peacefully in his library chair at Kildalton in 1892 “a man of large intelligence and practical good sense”:
All through Huronia and the townships northeast of Lake Simcoe it is possible to see fine farms, with the delightful houses which succeeded the log cabins, still occupied by descendants of the men and women with whom John Ramsay talked during his visit. Many of the younger generations have spread across the length and breadth of North America and the prosperity and happiness they have created for themselves is the finest memorial John Ramsay could have wished.
A U-Boat Lair
The intervening years have been quieter, with a gradual decline in the permanent population living on Ardtalla and Islay generally. One notable visitation during the First World War occurred at Glas Uig, a deep inlet in the coast between Aros Bay and Ardmore.
Local legend amplified by exchanges on the internet tells the following:
In 1921 a German paid a visit to the beautiful Island of Islay, one of the Inner Hebrides. Much to the surprise of the locals he told them that this was in fact not his first visit to Islay. During the Great War he had frequently visited what is a very well sheltered natural harbour on the east cost of Islay. The ‘harbour’, Clas Uig (or ‘Glas Uig’ – Gaelic is relatively forgiving where it comes to orthography.) lies well sheltered between two headlands. The valley between is boggy and hardly passable. He tended to venture in, rest, recharge batteries, put two posts on the headlands to be safe from surprise and send a raiding party to nick one or two sheep for the ships larder. Local shepherds did in fact count unusually high losses during 1916 to 1918. The islanders were more amused than upset and a walk to Clas Uig was organized to visit the memorable place together with the enterprising German captain. The story would have well been forgotten if it had not surfaced [sic] in the 1970s in a Scottish magazine ‘Scottish Field’. There is stated that sadly the guest books of the Hotel in Port Ellen where the German captain stayed were long lost. The two boats U-24 and U-90 show up as both belonging to Flottilla III. But without a name and a U-boat number the story is somewhat robbed of its hero (or its villain as far as the sheep are concerned). the date U 90 shot the sheep was 05.06.1918, it was on her way back to base while they anchored at the western shore of North Rona between 06.00h – 09.00h, accounting for 7 sheep. That’s written down in the War Diary. The W/T-station of St. Kilda was attacked on the way out to the patrol area.
Light House Life
In 2007 Seanchas Ile was published recording reminiscences of Gaelic speakers in different parts of Islay. One such was Mary McKechnie who remembers what it was like living at McArthur’s Head lighthouse, at the north end of Ardtalla:
I didn’t go there until my son was born, at the end of March in nineteen forty six… and we were there until September forty eight. But when we were there it was very lonely, there was no one there except two families. Well, A______ was at sea, he thought that once we were together and he went then to the lighthouses and when he finished where he was learning the way, the work he chose there, we were put to MacArthur’s Head. There’s not a road there but if you knew the way at the time, there was a road over, you could walk but it was a distance walking over the Ardtalla moor. We got a boat with the messages on Saturday, once a week it came with anything that you needed. It was the boat that belonged to the lighthouse and himself and two young boys always came with him, well normally but especially when it was difficult weather. There was a big platform and a winch and they put it… in a thing and they picked it up and then they winched it up. And that was the way they brought the coal up, they brought the coal in below and we then had to put it in bags and to hang it there and bring it up to the houses. More than seven tonnes. There wasn’t electricity on the island. But the one thing, we were lucky that there was a phone. There was a phone that came over the moor and back across the whole moor there. But it was dangerous when there was thunder and lightening, lightening especially… one time the lightening scorched half the pole… But A______ missed it (MacArthur’s Head) and I liked it eventually as well… in a way but you see my son, a wee boy, he was very shy. He never saw anyone…
The lighthouse at McArthur’s Head was constructed in 1861 by David and Thomas Stevenson. At the upper gate a sinuously wind-sculpted ash tree hugs the shelter of the walls. The Architectural Guide to Argyll and the Islands briefly describes it thus:
A short white cylinder perched on the flank of Beinn na Caillich at the entrance to the Sound of Islay. Equally white against the green slopes, low walls snake around an inner precinct in dipping curves.
A Sea Trout Story
“During my visit… I was granted the privilege of a day’s angling on the Kintour Burn. The day I had the good fortune to fish this particular stream was just after the water had subsided as the result of several days’ steady rainfall.
I reached the burn at 10.30 forenoon and fished steadily downwards towards the sea. By about one o’clock I had several fine specimens lining the bottom of my basket.
In the afternoon I decided to try my luck at spinning on the lower reaches of the stream, where it forms on its journey to the sea several dark and fascinating pools.
The Kintour Burn is in places far from easy to fish, owing to the thick foliage which lines he steep banks of many of the best pools, making it a somewhat difficult problem for the average fisherman to manoeuvre his line to advantage. On this particular occasion I was confronted with a barbed-wire fence running along in front of me, with clumps of thick foliage all around, all of which overhung the dark mysterious pools in irritating manner. I decided to risk the only chance there was left to me, viz.: to cast, or shall I say, fling my line over the tops of the branches which overhung the high bank (no easy matter at this place) into the inky waters several feet in front and below me.
My cast from high up above was a successful one, or perhaps a lucky one, for to negotiate my line from a lower level would have been quite impossible, owing to the density of the undergrowth immediately below where I stood; so I took advantage of the only restricted space available, which was a gap in the hedge where the barbed-wire fence joined it, on my right and left. Anyway, I took my chance – it certainly was a chance – and “plump” went my Golden Devon into the water of this dour-looking stream. Quickly I commenced to reel in, and in the twinkling of an eye a flash of silver swirled through the drumly water. A strike and I was fast into a beauty! I could tell he was a good fish by the strain he put on the line, under which the rod bent while the reel ran as if in harmony.
To attempt to land this fish from where I stood would have been an impossibility. The only course offered to me was to scramble over the barbed-wire entanglement in front of me and literally force my way almost neck-deep through the thickets to the edge of the perpendicular bank; all the while keeping a steady strain on the line by giving my rod what is technically known as “plenty of butt!” For fully twenty minutes I battled with this noble fish, which frequently leapt into the air, and in the end, as there was no possible way of reaching it with my landing-net from where I stood, I was compelled to slide down the bank waist-deep into the water alongside the now exhausted trout. After one or two attempts, I finally coaxed the sea trout into the folds of my collapsible net, and after wading down-stream for roughly twenty-five yards to the nearest suitable landing-stage, I successfully lifted my prize on to the bank. It was a fine, fresh-run sea trout, which turned the scales at fully three and a half pounds. I may say that I was nearly as wet as the fish itself as I sank into the mud at the foot of the bank, but it was certainly worth it! Later on that same day I killed several more good brown trout on my return journey up-stream to the road fro Port Ellen.
In Scotland with a fishing rod
R. Macdonald Robertson 1935
